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Voice
Voice- Friendly Clem's narrative for such a close and personal story is written in a friendly voice. He writes in a friendly voice in order to create and draw the relationship with the reader closer. A friendly voice provokes more emotion, and provides the reader with a more comfortable and 'close to home' type of reading. "Taken as a package, though, we were pretty average. Nobody spent any time thinking about us" (Martini, 15). Here Clem is explaining his brothers, it feels as though a friend is speaking to you about his family something you know. "I have this game I like to play. You can play it too. I call it 'Worst Games'" (Martini, 97). Clem uses words to create a friendship with the reader, the words are never too large to understand. Also, Clem explains emotion very well which also makes it very friendly. "Justification is on tiny ingredient of a vast cocktail you imbibe when mental illness is introduced to your life. You find yourself justifying everything. You justify what you attend to and what you ignore. Here is how I justified leeaving the country" (Martini, 37). He explains to the reader exactly how he feels about situations, clearly and accurately. Tone- Intimate & Academic In the intimate sense, as stated before Clem builds a relationship with the reader. Readers empathize with the Martini family throughout the memoir. As this memoir is a personal account of a family dealing with mental illness it is unable to skim the details. Getting into the sad, and frustrating details there is a feeling of intimacy and closeness with the author. "I needed time to put things into perspective, I told myself. I needed a change. Ben seemed so totally in a fury at me, at what he regarded as my betrayal of his confidence, that we hardly talked anyway. How helpful could my visits be at this point? It was more painful that therapeutic whenever I visited him in the psychiatric ward" (Martini, 38) You feel the sadness through his narrative, leaving the reader unable to feel like it is a family member of their own dealing with this. To touch on the illustrations, Olivier inserts magnificent drawings in order to set this intimate tone as well. The photo above is on the opposite page of Clem explaining the feelings of complete anxiety when taking his new prescriptions. The waves that are drawn following his head give you the sense of anxiety and explosions of anger and frustrations. As Bitter medicine is a very informative memoir there are a lot of statistics and academic information which is provided as proof of failure from the government in regards to mental illness. A man by the name of Chris Summerville on page 7 is listed as the CEO of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, the executive director of the Manitoba Schizophrenia Society, and a board member of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. This many gives statss and information about mental illness throughout the memoir. "Because of the danger associated with agranulocytosis, clozapine is reserved for patients with schizophrenia who have either failed to respond to all other antipsychotic drugs or present as particularly suicidal" (Martini, 221). Clem explains different drugs and procedures that Liv has to go through in a way that a regular reader will be able to understand the make up of the drugs and the effects. "A recent study indicated that following a heart attack, people with mental illness were less likely than the general public to revieve state-of-the-art treatment" (Martini, 165). Clem refers to studies and statistics in order to get his point across. "Canada's situation in this regard almost exactly parallels the United States'. In statistics released by the Conference Board of Canada in 2008, Canada and the United States were ranked side by side, in sixth and seventh positions out of sixteen nations, for rates of martality due to mental illness" (Martini, 163) http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/BC/ID/2308329952/ Is a great video of Chris Summerville http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/mental-health-care-needed-by-1-in-6-canadians-1.1858867 CBC writes an article about how 1 in 6 Canadians need health care for mental illness. Anna Garcia Ambler